Since 1992, the BC Adolescent Health Survey has been conducted every 5 years in school districts across BC. The surveys have included a number of scales related to family and school connectedness, peer attitudes, school safety, and emotional health. In 2008, the fourth survey added some additional measures related to cultural connectedness and self-esteem. Because of the changing demographics and social influences on adolescents, it is important to re-evaluate the validity of the scales that are being used, and examine new scales that have been included, especially for different sub-groups of youth who might understand the questions differently. Therefore, this project systematically examined the previous and new scales that had been used in the BC AHS 2008, using confirmatory factor analyses among other strategies to examine the psychometric properties of these scales.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc
Co-Investigators: Annie Smith, Dr. Colleen Poon, Dr. Laura MacKay, and Dr. Yuko Homma
Funded by CIHR– Chair in Applied Public Health under the grant “Building Capacity for Population-Level Monitoring & Interventions for Healthy Youth”, 2008-2013